Police Psychologist: A Case Study

Introduction In this scenario we are a police psychologist, and are a part of an investigation into a homicide of a high profile member (Mayor) within our community. Information that we have received from the department is that the victim was found with a single gunshot wound to the head. The victim was last seen with another notable figure at a nearby restaurant. We learned that before becoming the mayor, the deceased was the police chief of the police department and was very close to many administrators and officers. Most police psychologists will play different roles within the police department. One of the many roles that they can fill is being a consultant for the department, or they can conduct officer’s fitness for duty reports …show more content…
The psychologist can be very beneficial in assisting in the interviews. Most police psychologists are experts in their fields they can give an advantage to the officers interviewing regardless if they are participating or just giving advice on the interviews. The witness has been through a traumatic event and may not remember everything that happened at the time of their interview. The police psychologist can make a witness feel more at ease and not feel pressured or scared to speak to the police in a clearer mind at the interview. During a psychologist autopsy the psychologist should always be the one in charge. To perform a psychological autopsy the psychologist should have experience in doing one. The psychological autopsy should have correct details since the victim cannot tell their story them self’s. Performing an autopsy will help the investigation especially with a murder case. Not all murder cases will call for a psychological profile to be done, but one should be done if it is a high profile …show more content…
The first goal would to determine the mode of death. The mode of death and the means of death two different things. The mean of death is trying to find out how the person died. If we look at the mode of the death we would be looking for if it was caused by an accident, homicide, suicide or if it was natural causes that killed them. Our next thing we would look at would be why they died at that certain date and time. The person may have died because they happened to be in the wrong place at that time, missing a loved one or the anniversary of that loved one, or someone just had a grudge against them and wanted to kill them. We would then want to look at what the motivation is for the death of this person. Motivation for killing could be unintentional, sub-intentional or intentional. The last one is to just help the survivor’s family and friends on why the victim died. Doing the autopsy can help families to bring closure and help law enforcement to answer questions about the